Jacob Girdler joined Roblox in 2011 on a whim.
“I was sitting watching TV with a friend when he said, ‘Hey, I found this new block game. Do you want to try it?'” Girdler explains.
By then, The young man was only 9 years old. He lay down on the floor with his friend’s laptop and began building little structures: houses, obstacles and other “wild and wonderful things” that he says had no name.
2 years later, at the age of 11, Girdler designed one of his first games on Robloxcalled Secret Hideout Tycoon for two players. The objective, as in other games of the same genre, was start one with a small amount of moneybuying and building something and then turning it into a profitable empire.
At first nobody played, but already in 2015 more than 100 peoples had begun to entertain themselves with it.
A year later, after designing more than 200 gamessome of them from moguls, others about dance clubs or snowboarding, Girdler received his first check from Roblox. He made $350 from player microtransactions of Secret Hideout Tycoon for two players.
Roblox faces growing pains: How it’s trying to attract millennials and why its dark side could be a stark warning for the future of the metaverse
“That was all I made in 2016,” Girdler says.“It was a life of luxury“.
Things changed in 2017. His first game peaked that year with 3,000 users. It was then that Girdler He started earning between $1,750 and $2,000 a month with the game.
However, it was with another game that he truly struck gold. In 2019, while in college, Girdler released his great success: Obby creator. This game allows users to build almost anything whatever you can think of, including huge worlds created from scratch, filled with buildings, structures, vehicles, and objects, and sharing them with the rest of Roblox.
The game was overwhelmingly popular, almost instantly, and according to Girdler, its peak came this year, with about 10,000 characters playing at once. The creator attributes the success to the capacity for customization that can be exercised.
“It’s not so much about what I add to the experience,” Girdler explains. “It’s more about that they’ve come in and built something cool, and now they want to build on it or share it with their friends and do something together. Maybe they want to build something completely new… Definitely, the creativity aspect has helped a lot“.
19 marketing executives from major companies like Mastercard or Roblox share how they are adapting to the metaverse, screen fatigue, and other current problems
Obby creator has been played almost 250 million timesaccording to Roblox, and currently, reports to Girdler between $15,000 to $20,000 a month.Business Insider verified the young man’s income through the documentation he provided.
Girdler says that to a large extent works aloneexcept when he is occasionally hired for temporary projects, for which he charges between $100 and $200 each quarter. The creator of Roblox also He gives work to his mother, to whom he pays between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars per month for moderating the content that users generate in Obby creator.
Girdler explains that he has desire to work on something new after spending the last 3 years focused on creative updates to his hit game. The 19-year-old, based in London, intends to launch 2 completely new projects later this year, although he was tight-lipped about what those plans might look like.
To this day, he continues to surprise with the success of his work on the Roblox platform.
“Sometimes I forget that There are thousands of people who enjoy what I have created“And sometimes it can be a humiliating thing to think about,” Girdler says. “It’s very easy to forget about that when it’s happening through a computer screen.”
Learn how we work at .
Tags: BI PRIME, Money, Video Games, Entrepreneurship, Company